A Delhi High Court Division Bench dismissed the CCI's appeal and held that interest on a competition penalty can run only from default on a validly served demand notice. The judgment ties interest under the 2011 recovery regulations strictly to the Regulation 3 procedure and forecloses retrospective or automatic accrual. A digest of the dry cell batteries cartel facts, the question of when interest begins, and what the ruling means for penalty recovery.
In 2017 a two-judge Supreme Court Bench upheld the 'relevant turnover' approach to competition penalties, holding that 'turnover' in section 27 of the Competition Act means turnover from the goods affected by the contravention, not a firm's total turnover. A digest of the bid-rigging facts, the proportionality reasoning, the DG's investigative scope, and how the 2023 Amendment has since changed the penalty base.
By a 2:1 majority, SAT held that section 15J of the SEBI Act lets an adjudicator reduce a penalty below the statutory minimum in fit cases, over a dissent.
Valkya Editorial··8 min
TribunalSecurities and Exchange Board of India / Securities Appellate Tribunal
On 28 April 2026, SEBI passed a final order in the long-running Winsome Yarns GDR matter against Arun Panchariya, recomputing the penalty from approximately ₹67 crore to ₹20 lakh after the Securities Appellate Tribunal had repeatedly directed reassessment on proportionality grounds. The order is a worked example of how SAT's proportionality jurisprudence — the requirement that penalty quantum reflect comparable precedents, the role of mitigation evidence, and the limits on penalty when gains are not conclusively established — operates in the GDR-fraud space.